The spiffy new video board supplied dynamite replays Thursday night at Hancock Stadium. It also brought the "Kiss Cam" and "Smile Cam" to the Illinois State football experience.

Ultimately, there wasn't much to smile about. ISU kissed its No. 7 national ranking goodbye.

When a late tipped pass for a touchdown gave underdog Drake a 27-24 season-opening victory, a perfect stage was wasted by an utterly imperfect end.

A crowd of 12,167 showed up, with the "Zoo" student section spilling over into the East stands. Fans were treated to Chamber of Commerce weather: clear sky, low humidity, refreshing breezes. The address was Normal. It felt like San Diego.

Two things athletic departments cannot control - the turnout and the weather - cooperated fully. All that was left was for the Redbirds to control Drake, a team which hit town with a 63-0 deficit in scholarships.

Winning the game would be the manageable part, even with Drake ranked No. 2 nationally among Football Championship Subdivision non-scholarship schools. ISU has a full complement of scholarships and, presumably, better athletes inside the uniforms.

That's what made Thursday night so deflating for the guys in red. Not only did they let themselves down, but those who paid to see them.

"They were behind us 110 percent," said ISU star linebacker Kye Stewart. "They were loud. They were causing them to jump (false starts). I applaud our crowd. I'm just sad we weren't able to give them the win that they deserved."

This one got away for a variety of reasons.

Senior quarterback Luke Drone, who has been so good the past two years, threw three interceptions, with one returned for a touchdown.

A defense which held Drake to 89 first-half yards gave up 272 in the second half. A kicking game which has struggled throughout the preseason missed a 25-yard field goal attempt in the first half.

Those are physical things, correctable to one degree or another.

Far more disturbing was what happened from an emotional standpoint.

"(Drake) played an excellent game, and at the end of the game and the end of the day, they showed a little bit more heart and showed that they wanted it a little bit more than we did," ISU running back Rafael Rice said.

"There were a lot of intangibles throughout the course of the game. If we had showed more fire and went at them a little bit harder, we probably wouldn't have been in that situation (at the end)."

So what now?

Coach Denver Johnson and the Redbirds will do what football teams do following bitter losses. They will get blurry eyed watching the game film - "As painful as that's going to be," Johnson said - in search of answers.

Eventually, the vision will clear enough to see positives: Rice's career-high 218 yards rushing, Jason Horton's 119 receiving yards, Stewart's 15 tackles.

They also will see things inherent to first games: missed tackles, dropped passes, blown assignments. It was opening night for everyone. Even for the cheerleaders, who at one point spelled out Redbirds with large red flags: R-D-E-B-I-R-D-S.

Later, they got it right. In time, the team likely will, too.

"This is going to test you to see what you're made out of," Johnson said of himself and his team. "You'll see if you've got something to you or you're all talk.

"I don't think we looked past this bunch. We felt like we ought to be a favorite to win. Boy, we had a great home crowd and great student section, everything you could ask for in a home opener. I just think we have to look hard and evaluate what we're trying to do and who we're trying to do it with."

Randy Kindred is a Pantagraph columnist. To leave him a voice mail, call 820-3402. By e-mail: rkindred@pantagraph.com. The Randy Kindred Blog is at www.pantagraph.com/blogs